With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman

by G. A. Henty

Gregory remained four days in London, obtaining suitable clothes. Then, attended by Zaki, he took his place in the Great Western for Tavistock. Zaki had already picked up a good deal of English, and Gregory talked to him only in that language, on their way down from the battlefield; so that he could now express himself in simple phrases.

Mr. Tufton had on the previous day written, at Gregory's request, to his aunts; saying that the son of their brother had called upon him, and given him proofs, which he considered incontestable, of his identity and of the death of his father. He was the bearer of a letter from his father to them, and proposed delivering it the next day, in person. He agreed with Gregory that it was advisable to send down this letter, as otherwise the ladies might doubt whether he was really what he claimed to be, as his father's letter might very well have come into the hands of a third person.

He went down by the night mail to Tavistock, put up at an hotel; and, after breakfast, drove over to the Manor House, and sent in a card which he had had printed in town. He was shown into a room where the two ladies were waiting for him. They had been some four or five years younger than his father, a fact of which he was not aware; and instead of being elderly women, as he expected, he found, by their appearance, they were scarcely entering middle age. They were evidently much agitated.

"I have come down without waiting for an invitation," he said. "I was anxious to deliver my father's letter to you, or at least a copy of it, as soon as possible. It was written before his death, some eighteen years ago, and was intended for my mother to give to you, should she return to England. Its interest to you consists chiefly in the proof of my father's affection for you, and that he felt he could rely on yours for him. I may say that this is a copy, signed as correct by Mr. Tufton. He could not give me the original, as it would be required as an evidence of my father's identity, in the application he is about to make for me to be declared heir to the title."

"Then Gregory has been dead eighteen years!" the elder of the ladies said. "We have always hoped that he would be alive, in one of the colonies, and that sooner or later he would see the advertisement that had been put in the papers."

"No, madam. He went out to Alexandria with my mother, shortly before I was born. He died some three or four years before his brother. It was seldom my mother saw an English paper. Unfortunately, as it turned out, my father had dropped his surname when he accepted a situation, which was a subordinate one, at Alexandria; and his reason for taking it was that my mother was in weak health, and the doctor said it was necessary she should go to a warm climate; therefore, had any of her friends seen the advertisement, they would not have known that it applied to her. I, myself, did not know that my proper name was Hartley until a year back, when I discovered my father's journal at Hebbeh, the place where he was murdered; and then opened the documents that my mother had entrusted to me, before her death, with an injunction not to open them until I had ascertained, for certain, that my father was no longer alive."

One of the ladies took the letter, and opened it. They read it together.

"Poor Gregory!" one said, wiping her eyes, "we were both fond of him, and certainly would have done all in our power to assist his widow. He was nearer our age than Geoffrey. It was a terrible grief to us, when he quarrelled with our father. Of course our sympathies were with Gregory, but we never ventured to say so; and our father never mentioned his name, from the day he left the house. Why did not your mother send his letter to us?"

"Because she did not need assistance. She was maintaining herself and me in comfort by teaching music, French, and English to the wives and children of several of the high Egyptian officials."

"How long is it since you lost her?"